From “Let My People Free-Associate,” which imagines a psychotherapy session between Dr. Sigmund Freud and a disillusioned Jew.
Joe Israel: All the great religions have their Golden Rule.
Dr. Freud: But the Hebrews were the first to see morality as divine. Think of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Did their gods command men to lead ethical lives?
Joe Israel: Their gods weren’t very good ethical role models themselves.
Dr. Freud: And that is my point. What causes you to repress your id for the good of society – to act altruistically, often against your own interest – that force is God. This is a constant through Jewish history, no matter how you choose to describe it.
Joe Israel: I can see that’s how God has always functioned. But it’s so hard to leave behind the traditional God. I think I really need an authority figure. It’s comforting. I’m not sure that just having a force to connect with, is good enough. I can’t talk to it.
Dr. Freud: In this, I fear I cannot help you. One of the goals of psychoanalysis is to free the patient from oppressive authority – especially that which he imposes on himself. Your comfort and security ultimately are your own responsibility. That’s the price of being a grown-up. In fact, it can be argued that resisting the temptation to place one’s decisions into the hands of another, is the only hope for civilization. Otherwise, the end of the road is fascism.
Joe Israel: Comparing traditional God-belief to fascism is pretty extreme, wouldn’t you say, Doctor?
Dr. Freud: I don’t compare them. I only say that, without the ability to take responsibility for our own lives, humanity is destined for nothing but fascism and fundamentalism.
Joe Israel: What about the Jews? They’re my people and I love them, whether they believe the Bible literally or they’re atheists. They’re funny and they’re great and they understand me.
Dr. Freud: What about them?
Joe Israel: What the heck are they doing? Why do we have a seder at all? Why celebrate any of the holidays, or get married under a huppah? If God didn’t tell us to do it, then why do it?
Dr. Freud: Because they are the vehicles in which we carry our values. Because they are the way we have the great conversation. It’s how we encounter the eternal questions. We live through ritual and through stories, and together we try to work out how to repair this broken world. Let me ask you – at your bar mitsva, didn’t the rabbi say, “Judaism cannot offer you answers; all it offers is a conversation”?
Joe Israel: No, he didn’t.
Dr. Freud: Well, he should have. Mr. Israel, our people have done something ingenious, something no other ancient people could do. They have taken the super-ego, the force of our ideals, our conscience, and lifted it up to the level of divinity. They desire so much to control our id, our need for self-gratification. They want to protect the weaker members of society. They want to make this world into the Garden of Eden. They desire this so much that they called this great desire God, and taught us to obey it at all cost.
Joe Israel: And now we spend all our time trying to figure out how.
Dr. Freud: Yes, exactly. We, and every generation before us. And, I hope, after us. That is the great conversation. And since we know the vocabulary, we understand the references, we share the assumptions – we converse in a Jewish context.
Joe Israel: I think I see. So it’s not really disloyal to argue about God; it’s actually sort of a commandment. Dr. Freud, I notice that you started to refer to “we Jews”. Is it possible that you, yourself, still identify with the Jewish people? Are all your questions part of the great conversation?
Dr. Freud: Ach, tayer, a brokhe oyf dein kop.*
Joe Israel: I guess my time’s up. I hope you have a happy Passover, Doctor.
Dr. Freud: A zisser Pesah, mein freund.**
* Ah, my dear, a blessing on your head. (Yiddish)
** A sweet Passover, my friend. (Yiddish)
From Passover Parodies: Short Plays for the Seder Table, by Shoshana Hantman. Sidney Books 2013.